UNTIL Superpowers Database -- What Do *You* Want To See?

[RDU Neil]

To add on here...

 

Originally posted by Tom McCarthy

EMP - Not so much because it's hard to write up, but because it's a power which multiple SFX may justify; magnetism or nuclear fission, for example.

 

Earth manipulation - not a tough one to write up, but a genre bit worth a few paragraphs

 

Tom,

First off, love your mention of Density benchmarks. Great idea.

 

I wanted, though, to comment on what you stated above about EMP and Earth Manipulation. While, from a 20 year plus veteran of Champions, I have no problem figuring out how to create these powers... I really think we have to look at things from a newbie perspective.

 

A newbie, who has read the Titans, and wants to create a Terra clone character, will open FReD or another book, looking for "Earth Powers" or something similar, so they can build their character.

 

They won't find it.

 

Hero gives generic powers effects, and you build the "superpower" you want out of them. For some of us, this has always been intuitive and cool as hell... but after a long time, I think we all need to admit that this is NOT how the majority of gamers view Hero.

 

More than the math issues, more than the munchkinism that Hero allows... it is the lack of FLAVOR and lack of FAMILIARITY that I think keeps most folks from Hero.

 

Newbies don't start the game thinking, "I want to have a 75 active point multi-power, utilizing seven ultra slots, and 3 variable slot, with nine attack powers and two movement powers, with up to eleven different power advantages and seven power limitations, which, through description and role playing, will simulate manipulation of soil and rock similar to that displayed in comic books I've read."

 

(This is how I think... after so long with the system... and that's fine, but it's not how MOST people think.)

 

No... what they think is, "I want earth powers."

 

We have to give them "Earth powers." They need a full page with FLAVORFUL description, and simple, flat point costs, that they can go, "Oh... look... Earth Powers. 93 Points... scribble, scribble... ok cool... I've got Earth powers." Done.

 

The system is there... FReD has all the rules, supplements have all the advice... now we need to give them books that have done all the work... even work vets like us think is common and easy. ESPECIALLY the work vets like us think is common and easy.

 

If the Powers Sourcebook can do this... then it will succeed. If it doesn't, then it will not reach a new audience, it will not allow a GENTLE introduction to a very complex game. It will fail as a product.

 

Think of it this way. If I want to learn tennis, I pick up a raquet and ball, and with some guidance, I learn how to swing and hit, and move my feet... I am NOT handed a physics text on action/reaction, compression, force and velocity and formulas that abstract the concept of playing tennis.

 

That is what Hero has, for too long, expected players to do. FReD is a text book, explaining the underlying physics of a game, rather than the game itself. We all know this. That was the intent... but at some point, they have to publish the GAME itself. The players have to pick up the raquet and ball, and swing a few times.

 

This Powers book needs to be the raquet and ball of Hero. Something the player can pick up and swing with... even if they don't do a good job of it, at first. A veteran player will serve an ace, first time out of the bag with this book... new players will put it in the net... but ALL players are able to easily take a swing... which has not been the case for Hero in the past.

 

IMO, this kind of supplement really needs to be the focus NOW... or Hero will fail to catch on, and only us old farts will be sticking around to watch it fade away, once again.

[Storn]

Re: To add on here...

 

Originally posted by RDU Neil

 

Think of it this way. If I want to learn tennis, I pick up a raquet and ball, and with some guidance, I learn how to swing and hit, and move my feet... I am NOT handed a physics text on action/reaction, compression, force and velocity and formulas that abstract the concept of playing tennis.

 

That is what Hero has, for too long, expected players to do. FReD is a text book, explaining the underlying physics of a game, rather than the game itself. We all know this. That was the intent... but at some point, they have to publish the GAME itself. The players have to pick up the raquet and ball, and swing a few times.

 

This Powers book needs to be the raquet and ball of Hero. Something the player can pick up and swing with... even if they don't do a good job of it, at first. A veteran player will serve an ace, first time out of the bag with this book... new players will put it in the net... but ALL players are able to easily take a swing... which has not been the case for Hero in the past.

 

IMO, this kind of supplement really needs to be the focus NOW... or Hero will fail to catch on, and only us old farts will be sticking around to watch it fade away, once again.

 

And Neil is a very good tennis player. I've only beaten him once (outta hundreds of matches) and he was sick. So he understands the tennis analogy. AS do I. And agree.

 

I think there should be a power set per page. Earth, Wind, Fire, Density, Gravity, Magnetics, Telekinetics, Ice, Water, Gravity, Electricity, Solar, Speedster, Vibrational, Kinetic, Telepathic, Empathetic, Invisibility, Ghost powers, Domination (mind control), Phermones...etc, etc. and unlike my quicky list, put into alphabetical order.

[Gary]

I'd like to see gravity done right. Currently, the only way of doing it properly is a monumentally expensive change environment or an area effect transform.

[Killer Shrike]

SFX

 

Ditto the Special Effects orientation. Sections per common comic book SFX, each containing properly advantaged/limited and composite power constructs to mechanically handle that SFX in a straitforward way, with a flavor text blurb, a description of the SFX, and if necessary a blurb to cover any 'hand waving' used to simulate the effect. Each Section could also have 2 Power Framework (MPP, EC) examples combining a playable assortment selected from the powers list, just referencing the full write up. A single para at the very begining of the book could point out how to use a VPP in conjunction with the listed powers as a note for the newbies, with a Yield symbol and a page reference back to FRED.

[Agent X]

I must agree that suggestions as to how to handle special effects is probably the MOST useful thing I could see in a book like this.

[Tom McCarthy]

SFX to consider

Acidic or Caustic touch/spray (or poison, or cellular destruction)

Air control (animation, flight, blast/gust)

Animal powers

Animal control/summoning

Animate dead/summon zombie

Animate image (bring picture to life, summoning)

Armoured form (steel body or skin, or copper, crystal, etc.)

Astral projection (to see somewhere, or to go there and act, or to visit some Astral Plane)

Chameleon/disguise

Chemical (catalyst touch, drug touch, caustic touch as above, poisons)

Claws

Cosmic Power/Omega Effect/Continuum Manipulation

Cyberkinesis

Cybernetics/android or robot origin

Darkness

Deduction/Intuition/Genius

Density Increase and Desolidification

Devolution/Evolution (actively evolving or devolving targets)

Dimension hopping powers

Diseases

Duplication/multiple bodies (Triplicate Girl, Multiple man, Silent Majority, temporal fugue vs. bodies, mass conservation vs. not, shared memory or not, severing your limb as independent entity)

Earth control

Eat anything (with or without Bite and chew anything)

Electricity

Energy form

Energy projection/blast

Entropy

Exorcism

Extra limbs

Fear (including an AE PRE suppress or drain)

Flame (flame armour, damage shield, blast, telekinesis to move or animate flames)

Flesh manipulation

Force or energy manipulation, telekinesis (force field, shield, wall, energy constructs)

Glue (a la Baron Zemo)

Gravity (increase, decrease)

Growth and Shrinking (self or others (shrinking ray, growth ray))

Healing factor (regeneration, healing self, armour, LS and power defence)

Healing others (including taking the damage onto self)

Hypnotism

Ice (create ice, ice armour, blast, barrier, entangle, ice animation)

Invisibility, and just hard to perceive/blurred

Liquid form/gas form

Light powers (flash, laser, hypnosis, teleport/AFAL, desolid, flashlight, etc.)

Immortality (longevity, or Instantly Mature Reincarnation option)

Luck/Probability manipulation

Magic (ah, good luck, voodoo, maybe ?)

Magnetic

Microwaves

Mimicry (mimicking others' powers, or properties of materials touched, some mimics 'steal' the powers, others just copy)

Object animation

Paralyzing touch

Plant control, animation, growth, phytotoxins, hypnotic spores and hallucinogens

Possession/jericho effect/Bodyjacking

Precognition, and implications of acting to change what is foreseen

Projectiles

Radiation

Reality Warping

Resilience, including life support

Shapeshift with a huge number/infinite number of forms

Solar energy

Sonic (blast primarily, but also sound invisibility)

Speed/kinetic manipulation (speed or slow objects or characters)

Stretching/Shapeshifting/Malleable (ZigZag, including flowing through pipes and porous barriers, entangling, simulating vehicles or weapons, etc.)

Summoning creatures, demons, constructs

Supersenses and Danger Sense

Superspeed

Superstrength

Telepathy (including Mind Control, mental blast, mental paralysis, psychometry (and flipside, clairsentience from point of view of an object once attuned to it), phobia inducement (mental illusions subset), Empathy)

teleportation (apportation, etc.; Tachyon's a good start)

Time manipulation (Capt. Chronos is a good start)

Transmutation

Two-dimensional form

Vampirism (or lycanthropy)

Ventriloquism

Vibrational attack

Water control (blast, animate, create, movement, breathe water)

Weather (fog, lightning, wind)

Warps and folding space

Wishes

Webs/Ropes/Lassos/Tentacles (what tricks require stretching vs. entangle vs. TK)

 

Game mechanics to consider (across multiple SFX)

Immunity to a SFX

Extra defences vs. a particular SFX

Gaining strength from being hit with a particular SFX

All or nothing attacks (petrification, for example)

Hard to heal attacks (disintegration)

Homing attacks

Auto hit attacks

Continuing uncontrolled attacks with higher or lower speed than character

[MisterVimes]

Wow Tom... you rule

[Tom McCarthy]

Miscellaneous others

 

Absorb any attack, then reply with that same attack (limited mimicry)

Judge an opponent's calibre (superpower level Analyze skill roll ?)

Superspeed - attack on the move (buying extra movement usable only with half moves, to allow half moves equal to your full move)

Insect powers

Insect summoning/control

Metal warping (magnetism offers this, but so may others)

Wooden body or wood animation/warping

Reptilian powers (tail, regeneration, venomous bite, cold blooded, LS: food and drink)

Steal memories / copy memories or knowledge

Superconduction of energy

Perfect reflection / Mirror powers

Plasma powers

Radio powers

Shadows (may or may not be the same as darkness; typically manipulation or teleport, possibly animation)

Temperature control (verging on ice and fire)

Kinetic energy

Berserkers (not just the limitation, but powers and levels that kick in when berserk; probably a limitation value based on the commonality of condition and the roll of the associated disadvantage)

Merging or melding lifeforms to one another

Merging or melding a lifeform to an inanimate object

Mind swap (and swap mind into inanimate object)

Command undead

Crystal powers

Machine animation (unintelligent machines)

Molecular or ion powers

TK trick: create a lightning bolt by sorting ions based on charge

Colour powers (sprays as flashes, hypnotic or emotional effects, disguise or chameleonic invisibility, etc.)

Create vulnerabilities or susceptibilities in a target

Gestalt powers (teamwork required)

Nemesis power (automatically gain the one power needed to defeat someone)

Bouncing ball (I like the idea of Bouncing Boy, though I'd never play him; put it under malleable guys)

Sheath self in energy (like flame, but other energy types)

Prehensile Hair (currently used in my campaign, and big in Ninja Hero)

Levitation (both as limited flight and limited TK)

 

 

You might want to throw in some Legion of Substitute Heroes style 'supers'/deuces in the book (the man who can change to his flesh to stone, but becomes insensate and immobile; the girl with superstrength only in the dark; the firebreather with hayfever; the infectious disease transmitter with always on).

[Talon]

Re: Re: To add on here...

 

Originally posted by Storn

I think there should be a power set per page. Earth, Wind, Fire, Density, Gravity, Magnetics, Telekinetics, Ice, Water, Gravity, Electricity, Solar, Speedster, Vibrational, Kinetic, Telepathic, Empathetic, Invisibility, Ghost powers, Domination (mind control), Phermones...etc, etc. and unlike my quicky list, put into alphabetical order.

 

I think this is the best idea so far -- this creates a clear special effect emphasis, provides a non-numeric approach which should encourage newcomers, and feels like exactly what Hero should be doing.

[Mutant for Hire]

I'm with everyone else. I'd really like to see all of the major elemental powers dealt with. And when I'm talking elements here, I'm talking scientific elementals such as gravity and magnetism as well as the traditionlly mystic ones like fire.

 

Power frameworks should not be necessary but I'd like to see powers grouped explicitly so as to state that they can be part of an elemental control, as the game designers see it.

 

And of course we need to have something like Green Lantern's ring, Rogue's power absorption power, and some of the more famous examples of power as well.

[Chaosliege]

I'd personally like to see more Brick Tricks. Too many bricks are just jump-n-punch. With STR giving so many figured characteristics, it's easily the most cost efective type of hero. Sometimes to the point of being unbalanced.

[steriaca]

Originally posted by Chaosliege

I'd personally like to see more Brick Tricks. Too many bricks are just jump-n-punch. With STR giving so many figured characteristics, it's easily the most cost efective type of hero. Sometimes to the point of being unbalanced.

 

Save some Brick Tricks for the Ultimate Brick. The UNTIL Superpower Database is going to be one big book. Don't forget the popular but not eveyone is doing it special effects.

 

Hear are more special effects to think of.

 

Friction to Heat conversion (I had writen up a speedster named Hotstreak who's special effect is to convert friction into heat).

Sound to Light conversion.

Light to Sound conversion.

Hot to Cold conversion.

Cold to Hot conversion.

Ki/C'hi/Mana special effects (as long as thay don't take to much thunder away from Ultimate Martial Artest and Ninja Hero).

Energy Control powers (not just generate, but control of that energy in others).

Biological Control ("deathtouch" and other nasty things).

 

I do like the ideal of "plug and play" (and I do agree on what a newbie thinks...thay think "I want x powers" first, and hates to think up the special effects first, and work backwords...which is why charater writups are so popular as examples of powers). Remember, we were ALL newbies once.

 

Anyways, that is my .02$.

 

Steriaca.

[zornwil]

A few things I'm interested in, no particular order:

 

- powers for normals that mix skills with power-level capability that allow for simulation of very high-powered but somehow still normal supers that stand up against big-time supers - for example, the so-stealthy-he-is-invisible powers, or the detects-lying-by-hearing-the-heart - not that I can't do these things but am interested to see the take on these sorts of things and others

 

- any complex bundled powers, like stretching linked to shape shift linked to strike, that sort of stuff

 

- traps

 

- quick write-up VPPs with powers in them - that's a tall order of course, but like 2-4 gadget VPPs, 2-4 magic VPPs, etc.

 

- (this one would be really interesting) - powers geared to disrupt others' weaknesses

[nharwell]

Tom's list is incredible! Please consider many of the effects he lists. It includes many of the powers that, in the past, I've found nearly impossible to do well in Hero.

 

Also, I'd like to see characters or templates using some of the "controversial" powers and constructs in 5E -- damage shield, shapeshifting, etc. Build some characters to show us that the current powers/costs can work....

[dbsousa]

I agree with many on the board who would like to see, if not frameworks, then framework friendly powers. Personally, I would like to see powers listed with a per die/level of effect. That would make it easy for new players to say, "The Flaminator has 10" radius of Start Fires at 6 points per inch, 6 dice of Hot Foot at 10 points per die, and 4 dice of Flame Out at 15 points per die." since each of these cost 60 point, it is simple to put them in an EC or MP.

[Redmenace]

I would really like to see a good example of a "Body of some element " power. Specifically, a body of fire/plasma or of water where by the nature of the body is a limited desolid mass that has several special effect related powers that effect the physical world.

 

The potential for a Pandora's box is perhaps too high but It was one of the rare concepts I've had trouble building in hero.

 

On a side note, great to have Hero and you back Steve, et all.

[CleverName]

First of all I think organizing by SFX is a great idea.

 

While I can understand wanting to save space for powers and more powers, I think a section at the end of the book giving examples of using the powers to build a power framework would be an invaluable lesson and resource for the newbies.

 

AND I think a master list of powers with costs, etc. would be a wonderful resource for the rest of us when we are running VPPs.

[Steve Long]

A short example at the back... hmmm. That I might be able to do.

 

Thanx for the suggestions, guys -- keep 'em comin'!

 

I'll have further word on my progress on the book in this Friday's update. It'll be good to get home and really dig into it.

[Monolith]

I spent some time trying to think of what powers I would like to see in the book, but to be honest Steve's imagination is greater than my own, and I am sure that I will be surprised by quite a few of the example powers in the book; just as I was with the examples in FREd.

 

The only thing I would really like to see is that all the powers in the book are of "reasonable" power level. What I mean by this is that the powers portrayed can be used by players in most games. Many of the example powers in FREd are 100+ active point powers. Those examples are really not that useful when most GMs have a 60 point AP limit. Even using the guidelines in FREd have an 80 AP cap on powers.

 

Having a 400 point Time Stop example power is interesting from a design standpoint, but it does not help a new player who only has 350 points to spend and an 60-80 point cap. If this book really is for newbies, then the power levels within the book should reflect that for the most part, IMO.

[CleverName]

I don't think it is necessary to have a variaable power scale for each example power -- lising 40/60/80 Active point levels for Sensory powers would seem to be a waste, for example.

 

I do think that it make great sense for attack and defense powers -- using the AP examples currently in champions would seem to be the ticket.

[CleverName]

Steve, how big a part is the UNTIL DATABASE conceit going to play in the book?

 

While, I've never loved UNTIL* I think that some useful "non-gamespeak" jargon could be helpful in our games.

 

For example, it often hard to rate the power level of villians (and their powers) in a particular game without breaking into gamespeak. This supplement might give us a related set of terminology -- like the overall powerlevels in CKC.

 

class 1 powers = less than 40 AP

class 2 powers = 40-54 AP

class 3 powers = 55-74 AP

etc.

(You can probably come up with something better.)

 

So when Sapphire says, "Dr. Destroyer's left nostril beam is a class 5 lazer blast!" it means something both in-game, and gives a game mechanic foundation as well.

 

* I'm still looking forward to the book, I personally find superpowers more believable than a coherant UN organization...

[Celtic Cowboy]

I think McCarthy is on the right track although there could be several ways to format it. Most importantly something that gives the novice players a chance to look at the powers by theme or special effect and then figure out what the details of the Hero system are instead of looking at FRED and trying to make sense of how to write up thier character.

If he want's a human torch character someplace to give them lots of quick ideas of not only how to build the power but what kind of stunt powers to add on to it.

 

Mark

[Monolith]

Originally posted by CleverName

SWhile, I've never loved UNTIL* I think that some useful "non-gamespeak" jargon could be helpful in our games.

 

For example, it often hard to rate the power level of villians (and their powers) in a particular game without breaking into gamespeak. This supplement might give us a related set of terminology -- like the overall powerlevels in CKC.

CKC already has a ranking system within it. I do not know if Steve plans on expanding that system, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. It would definately add some color to the book.

[CleverName]

Originally posted by Monolith

CKC already has a ranking system within it. I do not know if Steve plans on expanding that system, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. It would definately add some color to the book.

 

Oooops, I do not have my book with me. I thought that rating system was an overall rating of the villian's power, not a rating for "a" power of that villian!

[JakSpade]

Steve,

 

What about "Powers You'll Never See"? Kinda like having a funny little weird powers area...

 

Example Powers You'll Never See: 1d6 Flash, Sticky, Uncontrolled, Continuous.

 

"Stick a Flash on an agent, and watch him run!"

 

Or have I just broken the rules here...

 

Jak